It seemed to be the end, and Mr. Polly replied with an air of being profoundly impressed: “Really!”
“Elfrid!”—a little disheartened.
“And then they ’ad it! They found he’d swallowed the very key to unlock the drawer—”
“Then don’t let people go casting snacks!”
“Who’s casting snacks!”
“Elfrid! This lady wants to know, ’ave the Prossers left Canterbury?”
“No wish to make myself disagreeable, not to God’s ’umblest worm—”
“Alf, you aren’t very busy with that brawn up there!”
And so on for the hour.
The general effect upon Mr. Polly at the time was at once confusing and exhilarating; but it led him to eat copiously and carelessly, and long before the end, when after an hour and a quarter a movement took the party, and it pushed away its cheese plates and rose sighing and stretching from the remains of the repast, little streaks and bands of dyspeptic irritation and melancholy were darkening the serenity of his mind.